In National Basketball Association or NBA mostly what comes in the mind of the fans first when it comes to cross over is players like Tim Hardaway Sr., Allen Iverson, Jamal Crawford, Kyrie Irving and Chris Paul. But in reality there are really a lot of more players to mention who have a good better handles in the league there is too much if I will going to mentioned all of them. In this new era of the NBA that they are saying now that is the years of the point guard, if Allen Iverson before has a double crossover that he really use well when he was still on his prime. There is also one point guard before who has another crossover move that became popular that time, which are now been used by players like. Kyrie, Paul, Crawford and even Russell Westbrook. So that is why on this article of mine let's all go back to the short story of Shammgod Wells or more popularly known today as God Shammgod that is known in the history of basketball of having the best handles.
Shammgod was born April 29, 1976 and was from New York, when we was just starting his basketball career he was became really popular in park of New York which is called the Mecca of Basketball because of his different style of dribbling the ball that we could say that it is for street ball skills.
While he is playing in the AAU Tournament he became teammate with Kobe Bryant, that on the time that they played together Joe Bryant the father of Kobe talked to Shammgod to teach Kobe on how to improve his son's ball handling skills and most the crossover.
In High School he played for the LA Salle Academy and became teammates with Ron Artest or we all know now as Metta World Peace. It could say that he has been a top prospect at that time, as he was chosen to play in the McDonald's All American on 1995 together with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Vince Carter. One reason why he was selected is because of his crossover move which he actually called one handed crossover. He was became more popular on that time because of the National TV Coverage.
When he goes to College he played for Providence, on his freshmen year he averaged 9 points and 6 assists per game. He js not the typical kind of point guard who shots a lot of long range shots, what he usually do best before is he uses his crossover move to break the defense of the opponent and then goes inside for a basket or make some nice assist plays. He also won an award of Big East Freshmen of the Year. In his sophomore year his production has increased a little bit, with 10 points and 6 assists per game and they have entered in the March Madness until elite 8 where he faced of with another great point guard that time of Arizona Mike Bibby. After that 2 years stint in College basketball he decided to already enter in the NBA on 1997, where he was selected by the Washington Wizards in the second round. In his NBA career he only managed to play a total of 20 games in 1997-1998 season which he averaged only 3 points and 1 assists per game.
Mostly in his professional career in basketball he played internationally particularly in China and in Middle East where he really became very popular, that is the time where social media does not yet really existed. What really makes him famous is his "one hand crossover" that has been used now by many NBA players that the game now has different type of plays and this moves also evolved which they called now the "Shammgod Crossover" in a typical crossover a player used his two hands to go to another direction or the side to side movement to avoid from defenders. While the Shammgod crossover is you will dribble the ball using one hands and then the primary hand will catch it to be able to go different direction, the ball is most exposed in this style of crossover but if the players already master this kind of style it became very different for the defender to guess on what direction you are going, unlike in other crossover that has a pattern of left and right. It is really needed in this technique a player who have high level of handles with the likes of Manu Ginobili, Jamal. Crawford, Chris Paul, Stephen Curry and Kyrie Irving which they mostly doing it in their games.
Now that even though Shammgod is already retired he is still have a bigger value in the NBA Teams especially in what they called player development because of this new era point guards are the ones know ruling the game. As of now he is a trainer of Dallas Mavericks that focused of his development training for the team is ball handling. One of the players that undergone training with him before entering in the NBA is Khris Dunn that played before for Timberwolves and Chicago Bulls. And that is the story of Shammgod and his one handed crossover that are now using by NBA players today.
